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Tag: poetry

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me how I manage to get everything done, in the context of being a grad student. Truth be told, I don’t always manage to. I often get things done either just in time, or just after time, and some things are routinely put on hold (cooking, vacuuming) so that other things can get done on time (papers, code). The so-called “work-life balance” can be an often elusive goal for graduate students, and I suppose for academics in general. While some academics I know are better at it than others, I doubt there are few, if any, who have nailed it down.

With that in mind, yesterday I also stumbled across a poem (and recording) by the late Kenneth Koch that seems relevant. Entitled “You want a social life, with friends”, it is of course about the difficulty (and the compromises involved) in making its title a reality. I won’t support or deny its claims, but at least at first reading, there does seem to be an undertone of truth to it. Without further ado:

You want a social life, with friends,
A passionate love life and as well
To work hard every day. What’s true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.

There isn’t time enough, my friends—
Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends—
To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
Michelangelo had feeling
For Vittoria and the Ceiling
But did he go to parties at day’s end?

Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his Girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But writes hardly anything at all.